f our mutual recognition in Paris, the circus boy began
to relate, as soon as the first flush of his surprise was over, the
story of his life since the incident in Turin. He had been to New York
and Boston, and all the large sea-coast towns; to Chicago, St. Louis,
and even to San Francisco; always with a circus company. Whenever he had
had an opportunity in the United States, he had asked for news of me.

"The United States is so large!" he said, with a sigh. "Every one told
me that, when I showed the Turin programme with your name on it."

The reason why he had kept the programme and tried to find me in America
was because the lottery ticket had been the direct means of his
emigration, and, in fact, the first piece of good fortune that had
befallen him since he left his native town. When he joined the circus he
was an apprentice, and beside a certain number of hours of gymnastic
practice daily and service in the ring both afternoon and evening, he
had half a dozen horses to care for, his part of the tent to pack up and
load, and the team to drive to the next stopping-place. For sixteen and
often eighteen hours of hard work he received only his food and his
performing clothes. When he was counted as one of the troupe his duties
were lightened, but he got only enough money to pay his way with
difficulty. Without a _lira_ ahead, and with no clothes but his rough
working-suit and his performing costume, he could not hope to escape
from this sort of bondage. The luck of number twenty-five had put him on
his feet.

"All Hungarians worship America," he said, "and when I saw that you
were an American I knew that my good fortune had begun in earnest. Of
course I believed America to be the land of plenty, and there could have
been no stronger proof of this than the generosity with which you, the
first American I had ever seen, gave me, a perfect stranger, such a
valuable prize. When I remembered the number of the ticket and the
letter in the alphabet, Y, to which this number corresponds, I was dazed
at the significance of the omen, and resolved at once to seek my fortune
in the United States. I sold the order on the tailor for money enough to
buy a suit of ready-made clothes and pay my fare to Genoa. From this
port I worked my passage to Gibraltar, and thence, after performing a
few weeks in a small English circus, I went to New York in a
fruit-vessel. As long as I was in America everything prospered with me.
I made a great de